Azernews.Az

By Araz Said, Azernews Staff Writer

A new wave of disputes and arguments fired up after a number of Turkish media outlets reported that the French Education Ministry intends to include a section on the so-called "Armenian genocide" in school books.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said it had launched a scrutiny regarding the introduction of such a section in school history textbooks in France, the Turkish Hurriyet newspaper reported.

Turkish Ambassador to France Tahsin Burjuoglu said the embassy is studying French school history and geography textbooks and will prepare a detailed report that will be submitted to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

French President Francois Hollande reportedly told Hurriyet during the 20th Annual Ambassador's Conference in Paris last week that he was unaware of introduction of such a section in the history textbooks and had not issued such an order.

"I have no information about it," Hollande told the Hurriyyet correspondent. 'I'll study the case and will give you accurate information."

Claims of "Armenian genocide" have already caused a lot of tension between France and Turkey and contradicting statements of French officials this year have led to sporadic ups and downs in bilateral relations.

In December 2011 France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a bill that suggested acknowledging the denial of Armenian genocide as a crime punishable by one year in prison and a 45,000-euro-fine. After the National Assembly of France voted in favor of the bill, Turkey recalled its ambassador from France and imposed a number of economic and political sanctions on France.

Despite this, the year 2012 had a good start for Turkey-France relations, as in February the constitutional court of France rejected the bill offered by Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that it runs counter to freedom of speech enshrined in the Constitution of France. This led to an improvement of the relations between the two countries and Turkey cancelled the sanctions.

And just when things started polishing up, the newly-elected president Hollande announced that he would stand by his pre-election pledge to support the criminalization of denial of the Armenian "genocide". In order to fix the situation, France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius assured his Turkish counterpart during a news conference on July 5 that Paris was willing to do everything possible to improve the relations between the two countries. "We will try to find solutions that will allow us to enter a new stage in our relations," he said.

This statement was referred to as "betrayal" by the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) and in order to appease Armenian population of France, Hollande's office announced on July 7 that "their position is very clear and the commitment will be met".

After the bill proposed by Sarkozy was rejected by the Constitutional Court, it seems like Hollande's office is trying to find new ways of legalizing the punishment of the Armenian "genocide" denial.

The situation also caused a lot of controversy among French officials. The former French Foreign Minister, Alain Juppe, referred to the new bill as "counterproductive" and said "the Turks are proud people and this is no way to make them move".

Armenians claim that genocide took place in 1915 when Ottomans killed over 1.5 million Armenians. Turkey, on the other hand, says that the number is highly exaggerated and only 500,000 died as a result of WWI fighting which included not only Armenians, but also Turks, and that the term "genocide" is an insult to their nation.